Something's not right with the AI...

[GShock]

Reinstalled after a year or so and I found no glitches and only a CTD. I have been playing intensively throughout the week and I can tell with huge spiral galaxy, as human, slow pace and slow tech, there simply is no way to stay alive against all the AI plus uncommon minor races.

The minor themselves are so ubered that their economy is non-existent: it's all industrial.

All they do is stay at their home planet with a huge fleet you need 2 hours of gaming just to reach the technology (and the numbers) to conquer them.

The big deal comes with the major races instead... I have something like 40 ships, all outdated but a big share of the galaxy with plenty of high techs... my neighbors fleets have 800 hit points and much stronger technology and while my economy is straight theirs is flourishing.

I haven't declared any war nor was I declared one but I see it's pointless to play because the AI is simply too ubered with a false economy and more than double my numbers. While the player does compromises and tries to keep a balanced economy with military and diplomacy, the AI can handle multiple wars at the same time and still defeat you consistently because there's something very wrong.

I'm talking out of experience, in this game I quit because it's pointless to play and in the 20 previous ones I really tried hard to win but it's simply impossible.

Look at the minor races: 12 ships, all medium sized and have ONE planet. Where do they take the technology if I have 20 planets with 50 research centers and I can't match their ship size?

Attack 40 (multiple fleets) vs 12 at their planet is not always a good idea... better destroy their shipyard as soon as it comes in space and then with transports ready you sacrifice all your 80 ships just to take that single planet... of a minor AI.

Do you realize it takes 100 turns just to do that? We're talking of a single planet of a single AI. (tech brokering and surrender disabled). Figure how one feels at imagining he has to do the same with 300 more planets in the whole galaxy. No, really... if you don't fix this I simply can't play so I'll have to uninstall again.

Sorry for the rant... but I paid for this game even before it was released and I haven't ever played it because of the bugs, the CTDs and everything else. Now it looks very good and it's challenging to find all those economies with a solid strategy but if the AI cheats this bad it's simply not worth of my time and, sadly, of the money I spent.

[GShock]

No it's not a matter of research or economy or diplomacy alone. The AI simply has 2 planets now I have 15 (much of their own are now mine). It is losing the empire but winning consistently in space because of its uber ships it has no mean to sustain the upkeep for. When I conquer a planet there's really only industrial buildings... good to build but not to make the economy go round. At least that's how it SHOULD be.

One would think at least about a couple of considerations: when I capture a planet that has all industry or all research, aside from what I already said with the economic impact of the loss, I also capture technology, facilities, scientists, slaves, whatever... the AI doesn't feel it because it's not in the game. No impact on anything apparently.

With these 2 planets, it has 1 shipyard with 11 ships defending and 1 ship in each of these 2 planets plus a powerful fleet of 8 ships I simply can't stop.


I have 34 logistic it has 54 and it's all capital ships with big slugs and missile defense (it's correct because those are my primary attack weapons) and I've attacked it with 5 fleets in a row being defeated in turn. No need to resupply? What about manpower/efficiency loss? In theory we're talking of a turn where 8 ships took a simultaneous attack from at least 50 ships maybe even more, all destroyed.

At the end of each battle, the AI has ONE damaged capital ship, ONE scratched capital ship and SIX untouched capital ships. This is really beyond acceptable to me. My fleets are a mix of corvettes, frigates, ranger and small escort with tiny interceptors.

Even if the attacks were not considered simultaneous, if only one of their ships gets damaged and the others untouched (it's not what I see in the battle screen, I see they all are hit more or less gravely), of course it's one defeat after the other for me. It's totally absurd and makes no sense.

Still never mind, I have another fleet who just sneaked far behind and took its capital planet. Now the AI has 11 ships and a shipyard plus this 8 now reduced to 6 (it lost 2 ships with me attacking with over 50 vs 6 it's ridiculous) and only one colony, the new capital.

No morale impact, no economical collapse... no technological loss... These are aspects that should be looked at. I've noticed a weakness of the AI... if you leave a ship (a single ship) in its LOS, it will destroy it but then not make use of the rest of its moves. This allows me to build forces somewhere else and then launch another attack while I keep it wasting time on this single unfortunate ship. :-)

In the end... after 6 more defeats with the AI losing 1 ship at each battle, maybe I can do it... but this is not really what I had expected of this game. If you go looking back at one of my previous posts it's the same with the minor AI camped with 12 ships in its capital.

You must launch 20 attacks to capture that single planet.

On the economy/resource side... I've basically destroyed all its starbases and when I try to sue for peace I see all its main resources are negative. What happens to a thulium data archive if you have no thulium? I suppose nothing... to a ship that requires durantium to operate and you have no durantium? Nothing I suppose... and that's another problem. The AI is supposed to go crazy at manufacturing. Without entertainment and all focused on the industry isn't its morale going down? Never mind...

I by no mean want to criticize for the sake of hating but this game is 100 more complex than it seems and 1000 times less complex than it should be for an acceptable simulation point of view. It is on these aspects I'm focusing and back to the initial rant. If this is what I must do to kill an AI that has ONE planet and a total of 18 ships (6 in fleet, 11 in shipyard and 1 at capital) what lies ahead for me with the other neighboring AI who is flinging its fleets at me (we're neutral) and has 25000 credits and at least 20 colonies?

I know what awaits: uninstall again... and that's the problem.

[Oneeyed]

The AI doesn't pay maintenance for stationed ships. This means as long as the ships are defending a planet the ship maintenance is 0.

And you know you can increase your logistics points very quickly by researching the right tech. Or you could select a trait at the beginning of a new game which raises your logistics points. If the AI has 54 and you only 34 are you sure you don't have a tech disadvantage. Because if the AI has a tech advantage that would explain why you loose all your ships. The battles are not about number of ships. Maybe you use a weapon type the AI has a defense for?

GShock eredeti hozzászólása:

No it's not a matter of research or economy or diplomacy alone. The AI simply has 2 planets now I have 15 (much of their own are now mine). It is losing the empire but winning consistently in space because of its uber ships it has no mean to sustain the upkeep for. When I conquer a planet there's really only industrial buildings... good to build but not to make the economy go round. At least that's how it SHOULD be.

One would think at least about a couple of considerations: when I capture a planet that has all industry or all research, aside from what I already said with the economic impact of the loss, I also capture technology, facilities, scientists, slaves, whatever... the AI doesn't feel it because it's not in the game. No impact on anything apparently.

With these 2 planets, it has 1 shipyard with 11 ships defending and 1 ship in each of these 2 planets plus a powerful fleet of 8 ships I simply can't stop.


I have 34 logistic it has 54 and it's all capital ships with big slugs and missile defense (it's correct because those are my primary attack weapons) and I've attacked it with 5 fleets in a row being defeated in turn. No need to resupply? What about manpower/efficiency loss? In theory we're talking of a turn where 8 ships took a simultaneous attack from at least 50 ships maybe even more, all destroyed.

At the end of each battle, the AI has ONE damaged capital ship, ONE scratched capital ship and SIX untouched capital ships. This is really beyond acceptable to me. My fleets are a mix of corvettes, frigates, ranger and small escort with tiny interceptors.

Even if the attacks were not considered simultaneous, if only one of their ships gets damaged and the others untouched (it's not what I see in the battle screen, I see they all are hit more or less gravely), of course it's one defeat after the other for me. It's totally absurd and makes no sense.

Still never mind, I have another fleet who just sneaked far behind and took its capital planet. Now the AI has 11 ships and a shipyard plus this 8 now reduced to 6 (it lost 2 ships with me attacking with over 50 vs 6 it's ridiculous) and only one colony, the new capital.

No morale impact, no economical collapse... no technological loss... These are aspects that should be looked at. I've noticed a weakness of the AI... if you leave a ship (a single ship) in its LOS, it will destroy it but then not make use of the rest of its moves. This allows me to build forces somewhere else and then launch another attack while I keep it wasting time on this single unfortunate ship. :-)

In the end... after 6 more defeats with the AI losing 1 ship at each battle, maybe I can do it... but this is not really what I had expected of this game. If you go looking back at one of my previous posts it's the same with the minor AI camped with 12 ships in its capital.

You must launch 20 attacks to capture that single planet.

On the economy/resource side... I've basically destroyed all its starbases and when I try to sue for peace I see all its main resources are negative. What happens to a thulium data archive if you have no thulium? I suppose nothing... to a ship that requires durantium to operate and you have no durantium? Nothing I suppose... and that's another problem. The AI is supposed to go crazy at manufacturing. Without entertainment and all focused on the industry isn't its morale going down? Never mind...

I by no mean want to criticize for the sake of hating but this game is 100 more complex than it seems and 1000 times less complex than it should be for an acceptable simulation point of view. It is on these aspects I'm focusing and back to the initial rant. If this is what I must do to kill an AI that has ONE planet and a total of 18 ships (6 in fleet, 11 in shipyard and 1 at capital) what lies ahead for me with the other neighboring AI who is flinging its fleets at me (we're neutral) and has 25000 credits and at least 20 colonies?

I know what awaits: uninstall again... and that's the problem.

[GShock]

Oneeyed eredeti hozzászólása:

The AI doesn't pay maintenance for stationed ships. This means as long as the ships are defending a planet the ship maintenance is 0.

And you know you can increase your logistics points very quickly by researching the right tech.

By the time I get that 34 the AI has 54 and even if I wanted to capture a minor, even a minor civilization cheats so much it's still ALWAYS ahead of you.

You need transports (technology), plus weapons (technology) plus numbers (which means logistics but also population and industrialization). THAT SINGLE PLANET shouldn't be able to match this but it is. By the time I'm there if I have 18, there's 16 ships and my 18 logistics is not 18 ships (9 tiny or 6 small). You want to go with frigate? Great... 20 more turns for the tech, 5 to build, 5 to get a couple of ships there and the AI has 20 ships on the planet.

It keeps spawning shipyards in space and even if I kill it, I take damage and I'm still stuck there can't invade if I don't destroy those ships on the planet. So what I do is block the way from the shipyard to the planet and do exactly what I did with the other AI: fight wave after wave and lose dozens of ships. If the shipyard is blockaded it can't reinforce so I will eventually capture the planet. This is no fun, it's exploiting the AI stupidity even though it's cheating (and it's been made to cheat just because it's stupid).

Your speech would make sense if I didn't have to research other techs for industrialization, economy, trade and diplomacy at the same time. Apparently the AI doesn't need to do so if it's always ahead of me in everything (mind this bordering AI was just slightly ahead of me in power rating and we're both very low in the global power having only 1 AI below us (I am next to last and this AI is just slightly above me).

I have 10 stations and all positive in money and resources. This AI has all negative but it's ahead of me? How. By cheating of course, as I said from the beginning.

That's how it has all high techs in all fields (tech trading disabled) and can take 50vs8 and still win 4 battles in a row coming out of it with just 2 lost ships: I repeat 50vs8= 0-6. That single fleet wiped out all of my fleet coming from 20 well developed colonies and similarly high technologies, excluding the reinforcements coming piecemeal to a military station nearby, with an economy that should be on the brink of collapse, mass histerya from the population (20 vs 2 colonies) and morale under the soles of their feet.

Oneeyed eredeti hozzászólása:

Or you could select a trait at the beginning of a new game which raises your logistics points. If the AI has 54 and you only 34 are you sure you don't have a tech disadvantage.

The AI is cheating that's my disadvantage, man.
Figure out even with 50 ships lost it now only has 6 on a total of 11. A smart Drengin will attack now, it's just behind this AI, now that I have few ships. A smart AI would have called upon allies... instead as soon as I captured its planets by sneaking, I bribed it into peace, kept amassing ships and then attacked again: this is no fun it's called winning by exploits (the exploration treaty sale IS an exploit).

Wave after wave those 6 will be reduced to a number its technology can't make a difference anymore (it should have been so VERY FAR before getting to 50 vs 8). Simply put, it is not defending its 2 planets but chasing my sacrifice-ships so, in the end, I will destroy its planets OR that single fleet wave after wave. This is no fun.

Oneeyed eredeti hozzászólása:

Because if the AI has a tech advantage that would explain why you loose all your ships. The battles are not about number of ships. Maybe you use a weapon type the AI has a defense for?

Is there a weapon this AI can't have defense for? ;)
I went with beams at the beginning, augmented twice because I saw it had no shields. Then it developed shields... so I favored missile ships and now it has missile defenses and developed slugs so I am now going with armor (which had already been augmented). The main problem it's the capital ships: it does have the weapon thechs but also the logistics techs... and when you go to their planets... the research techs, the industrial techs... it's got everything... it's ahead in EVERYTHING.

You're not exacty talking to a newcomer of this kind of games. I'm telling you what I see and I see a stupid AI that doesn't use diplomacy, moves its only defense away from its planets chasing ghosts, has a cheated set for economy and research and that it's no fun to play at all. I'm not saying I Can't beat it... on the contrary every time I raised to middle power I quit to restart again. It is possible but it's not fun. I'm sure this game is a total BLAST in multiplayer but as far as AI is related the deficiencies in decision-making processes can never be solved by cheats.

There's simply something wrong that's all.

[Orlock]

I agree in every point.
I cannot colonize AND build starbases AND build up a military fleet at the same time. The AI can.
I cannot research military AND diplomacy AND infrastructure at the same time. The AI can.
And I play on normal.
That's just not fun.
I'm happy I bought this game on sale. So it hurts not to bad to say, that I quit now.

[rog214]

They just removed the Ai not paying maintenance on normal difficulty and below in the latest update. That should help.

[GShock]

It will surely help but if you remove cheats from a stupid AI you're not gonna get the desired improvements. In any case, since i updated to #4 opt-in (released yesterday) the game crashes Steam upon loading. I have validated, still crashes, opened a ticket and waited .... still waiting for answer, meanwhile I downgraded to official version (haven't tried yet, I will as soon as I post this).

In the initial phase we go for colonizing and we colonize as many planets as we can: to what avail... when I meet the other major civs, they all have more or less the same number as if they launched one colonizer after the other like I did (I go for benevolent and I have 1 extra colonizer and 1 extra planet, then go for builder and convert the 3 constructors to colonizers). I am all for colonization, as many as I can and this means trying to have fast ships.

As soon as I meet the others, they have the same number of colonies like they took my same approach (I am bankrupt having to buy ships), same ideology, same technology but on top of that, they have bigger ships, bigger logistics and bigger weapons. It's one cheat after the other... couldn't be clearer than that. So I have say 20 colonies, the AI next to me has more or less the same but ALL THE AI SEE ME AS RIPE FOR CONQUEST.

I think patching the AI is all about decision making, not about balance. If you make an AI that takes the correct decision in diplomacy, economics and military, it is possible to succeed and gradually tune down the cheats but nothing may really help: if the AI is stupid, without cheats it's easy to beat it and that's what balance means.

The correct decision-making process has to distinguish between defensive and offensive war but behind that, there's development. The AI must develop all its fields in an attempt to become as powerful as possible in all these three fields. If it has a poor military it must invest in diplomacy more heavily and buy time to improve with the help of its allies.

While the AI can't decide when to fight a defensive war, it can decide when to run an offensive war and here its borders must be secured by diplomacy then it must evaluate the difference in power and it must have a reachable objective: capture a few colonies and see how it goes? Probe attack to taste the enemy ships? Attack just for the sake of helping another ally? Utterly go for the destruction of an entire civilization?

Count the resources spent and the weakening effects of fighting a prolonged war... but in any case the AI must not be easy to bribe into peace, especially if it's winning badly and would wipe out the player if it continued to wage war.

This is not a problem of balancing it's a problem of decision-making processes and the ability to stick to the decision for as long as needed to assess the results and eventually keep it or change it in favor of another decision. If the decision is not based on concrete parameters and concrete possibilities of winning something the AI should not attack but when it does, it must do so to win and that includes its ability to call upon allies to strike you too so you're fighting outnumbered.

In this Universe there's many AIs but it looks like they don't know that if you are weak you will be conquered and if you're strong the others should coalize against you.

Now let's see if the official version works...

[K1D 1C4RU5]

I agree with the lot, that there are ways to circumvent and overcome the bulk of issues that G Shock has brought up, and some are user error, but the fact remains, the AI is aimless, diplomacy is really weak, and the fact that you have to find ways circumvent certain AI issues, does not really justify the game being faultless or even really good.

I want to like this game so badly, and am a huge GC2 fan, but have stopped playing for some of the reasons listed, as well as others.

[Oneeyed]

If you don't like the AI cheating then disable it. Just set the AI tech cost divisor to 1.

[GShock]

Oneeyed eredeti hozzászólása:

If you don't like the AI cheating then disable it. Just set the AI tech cost divisor to 1.

I've written several examples on how to exploit the weaknesses of the AI and still come up with a solution that beats the cheats you should read.

One such example is the exploration treaty you can use to get easy money (especially from the minors) if this was fixed (and it WILL be fixed as the DEV said) how will the player cope with an AI that has an advantage in all tech fields and in economy at the same time?

You can't just solve the problem like that with a code line or a parameter 0/1.

If the AI is not taught how to carry out a plan, by disabling the cheats you'll leave it no chance.

[Orlock]

Cheating is not a general problem. Civ V is cheating too. You just don't see it, if you don't know, where to look. It's just much better balanced.
In a game on "normal" difficulty in Civ V it seems, most of the time, that the AI plays by the same rules as the player.
So "normal" difficulty should be a game, that you can win, if you don't make much/big mistakes. GalCiv III demands a pretty good game to win on normal, because of the unbalanced cheating. Maintenance for all AI ships should improve the balance, so I may come back, when patch 1.7 is online.

[karmavirus]

I used to be able to win this game on normal. Now I'm set to beginner and the AI just spams 20 ships by the time I have one fleet of logistic 10. It's ridiculous how much the AI can field way more units so quickly. On Beginner. I used to enjoy this game, not I can't even play it.

[GShock]

Everything changed with 1.7. At least with the medium sized galaxy the AI no longer seems to field an unlimited number of ships. Did you update?

[karmavirus]

I think much of the problem is with the over-reliance of food and population. I made a highly research and production heavy race and got stomped. Next I made my Derptarg faction with max bonuses in food and growth and was steamrolling everybody. It's weird how my mentally challenged faction manages to race through the tech, while my tech savvy ones are dead in the water.

Of course when I got stomped earlier today, it was in a medium map with Drenjin. Before that the Acreans were nearby on a small map. Both times playing a tech heavy race I was murdered quickly. Now with the farmers, my race is annihilating everyone.

I'm also boosting each planet with economic starbases from every angle. They can't be within 5 tiles on one another, so I'm spacing them out to where the planet they affect is right in the tiny grid corner of their influence area. So each planet gets about 3 economy starbases working on morale, manufacturing, research and approval.

[Oneeyed]

Absolutely true. Food and Population trumps a mostly everything. But nothing trumps 6 economic starbases per planet.

Take the economic starbases out and the AIs don't accomplish anything.

karmavirus eredeti hozzászólása:

I think much of the problem is with the over-reliance of food and population. I made a highly research and production heavy race and got stomped. Next I made my Derptarg faction with max bonuses in food and growth and was steamrolling everybody. It's weird how my mentally challenged faction manages to race through the tech, while my texh savvy ones are dead in the water.

[Horemvore]

Its 4 tiles(its in the xml) not 5 tiles, you can usualy fit in 4 ecos(never tried to go for 6, might have to look at my placing) around a system. But yeah Food is the key! It boost raw production, which in turn boosts everything else. They should add a divider so 1 pop isnt 1 raw production. A ring of farms around a hospital will trump most unique improvements like manu Cap, Durantium refinery ect. Moral isnt even an issue with the eco bases :)

Atm I am tryign a new layout to my planets 4-5 farms over 2-3, and well lets just say i havnt yet made a research spec planet yet, and still i am top of research by 6-7 techs (Normal Diff I find it best to see how good a new strategy/layout is, just about to restart on the same map with Gifted due to been so far ahead)